| PokerRoom and Hollywood Closed to U.S. Real Money Existing US PokerRoom and HollywoodPoker players officially got the stop order today on all real money games. Some existing skins are affected as well. New US players have been blocked at PokerRoom and Hollywood Poker for some time now. Real money deposits officially stopped on October 25th but as of today, November 6th 12:00pm, no more real money games can be played by US players. All cash must now be withdrawn and real money play will be suspended. Please visit the U.S. poker news page for sites accepting United States.
There is much confusion regarding these brands because of their involvement with a huge amount of skins. The reason PokerRoom was forced to close to US players is because they were recently acquired by Betandwin which issued statements that said they would stop real money US gambling.
That leaves the major software provider, the Ongame Network. According to various poker sites running the Ongame software it will be left up to the poker room to decide if they are closing or not.
Many poker portals are giving out false information saying that all Ongame Network sites are closing to the U.S. This is indeed false as AmericasCardroom.com, an Ongame software user, has issued statements that they will remain open to the US
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“We run the Ongame software but we are a completely separate company so it is our choice to stay open to the US ,” said Americascarroom support personnel.
Other sites like Full Contact Poker and Alamo Poker are seeking alternate methods to serve their players. On November 14th many of the ex-Ongame skins and other sites which can’t accept US players will be switching software providers. The new host of all these old skins is being kept secretive.
The closing of PokerRoom will also hit the Macintosh online poker community very hard. They were notably the first poker site to offer real money games to Mac users by using Java software. Full Tilt stands to generate even more revenues by staying open to the US and offering one of the only Mac online poker platforms left on the market.
PokerRoom began almost 10 years ago as a play money site developed by two young college students and it looks like they will be going back to their grass roots, for US players at least.
Media Source:
Roger Shriver |
